


When A Door Closes

by Nevcolleil



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Episode: s01e12 Screwdriver, M/M, Multi, POV Sarah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:46:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: Sarah gets the feeling that she's not the only one who's missed some things.





	When A Door Closes

**Author's Note:**

> I had some thoughts rewatching this episode that I had to get rid of before I can go further on my other fics. Thank you, you few precious souls who have reviewed my other fics :) I hope you like this little bit.

Looking back, she _really_ should have known.

It's easy to explain why she didn't. Jack is...

Jack. And Sarah will probably always be just a little bit off her game when it comes to Jack. To anything related to Jack. This whole case is just proof of that, isn't it? Since when does "he's emotionally invested" constitute a good reason to involve an agent from an outside agency in an operation?

Plus, Sarah wasn't really paying Mac that much attention when she first got to Los Angeles. She was too focused on Jack, on Jack's reaction to her just showing up, and on _her_ reaction to Jack. It occurred to her, in the moment, that it was a little.. odd, Jack coming to the door at Mac's place. (She remembers Jack's weird _thing_ about answering other people's doors...) But Jack and Mac are obviously close. Sarah had noticed that immediately the last time she was in LA, when she met Mac. She hadn't been paying him as much attention as she should have then, either, and she'd obviously never been to his home, but the way he greeted her _could_ have been normal. He acted awkward around her... careful. Polite. (Maybe _too_ polite? Her mind is racing now and she doesn't know what to think about anything.) Like he didn't want to say or do the wrong thing. But she assumed he was just being sensitive to her history with Jack, and trying to stay out of their way.

Shit.

What Sarah overheard in the church didn't fit as nearly into that explanation.

She was doing her part to secure the chapel, walking in what she thought was the opposite direction of where Jack had gone. She'd seen Mac duck into the confessionals, so she's thought she'd move past them and take up a position on the other side of the altar room.

Then she heard the men talking. She should have just walked past - made a noise to announce her oresence, something.

But Jack.

And him saying how messed up he was... 

And then she was just standing there, listening to the odd tone in Mac's voice as he said, "Oh, this is you pretending to be fine, huh?"

Listening but not catching on.

"I know I should have told you about the wedding," Jack was saying...

But why did Mac _still_ sound like he was being too careful not to give anything away? She didn't even think of that. And why did Jack sound like he was apologizing? There's sharing all of the important things in your life with your best friend - and then there's feeling _obligated_ , if that's what she was hearing, to do so.

And that wasn't even the weirdest part of that conversation. Sarah listened to Jack deny knowing why he threw out her invitation, and then - for once - she heard real emotion in Mac's voice as he replied.

"Oh, you know why. We both know why, " Mac said. "You still have feelings for Sarah, and you don't want her to be married. "

Well. It's obvious what her focus was on when she heard _that_.

She missed everything else. Everything... that is currently _so_ obvious on Jack's face. As it had been on Mac's, she remembers now, when she'd glimpsed Mac's face over Jack's shoulder, on the balcony.

Sarah had been so lost in the moment - in the ~~mistake~~ ~~missed opportunity~~ , in her conversation with Jack... if she'd thought about Mac at all, she'd thought that that look on Mac's face had to have something to do with Nikki.

Jack was standing so close. Then he was standing even closer. Then Mac wasn't standing on the other side of the window anymore, and a moment later, Jack was walking away too. Sarah had a lot more to think about than whatever mystery she'd accidentally spotted on her ex-partner's new partner's face.

It's no mystery what Jack is thinking as he waits for Mac and Nikkie to walk out of the warroom.

No to her.

Not in a face she once knew so well. (Will always know, in certain ways.)

Jack's aggression towards Nikki - the aggression Sarah had always attributed to betrayal, pride and outrage on behalf of his friend - should have been her first sign. Jack's jealousy the morning after Mac obviously spent time with Nikki was another. 

But this. This isn't a sign. This is the way Jack looked at her... that night on the balcony. Just before he did the right thing and walked away. ~~The way she couldn't.~~

Things are still too raw between her and Jack for them to have this conversation, but maybe Sarah feels like she owes Jack one - for saving her life one more time by leaving that balcony with both their honors in tact. Maybe she won't ever be able to see Jack Dalton in a bind that she thinks she can help him out of and not do _something_.

Or maybe Sarah just feels guilty for not noticing that something needed to be done sooner.

If Mac hadn't accidentally seen Jack drawing closer to Sarah on that balcony... would he have spent the time with Nikki that Jack got jealous of? Would he be in the war room with her right now? Planning... Sarah doesn't know what. She doesn't know their whole story, but she knows what she saw (once she clears her head well enough to analyze it.)

Sarah waits until the others have drawn far enough away that they can speak more or less privately, then she steps close enough to Jack that even with her voice lowered she can talk freely without anyone but Jack hearing her.

"You know... moving on... That's what people do, Jack, " she finds herself saying before she can think of anything less layered. "It sucks at first... It sucks a lot, actually." 

'Even when you know who you're moving towards', she doesn't add. 

"But it's the only way anyone ends up happy, " Sarah says. "Mac knows that."

From what she's seen - even while she hasn't been paying enough attention - he's more than halfway there already. It just seems like maybe Sarah isn't the only one who's missed a few things.

"Yeah, well, Mac knows a lot of things," Jack says, still more than half focused on the war room. Sarah had hoped his head would be in there, and not latch onto one of those other layers of meaning it won't help either of them to look too closely for in her words. 

That doesn't mean she doesn't feel it when Jack's gaze returns to her, for just a second, or that she doesn't hear the layers in Jack's own voice.

"But there's knowing a thing with your head," he says in that southern drawl she once loved so much, "and then there's knowing it at the same time as your heart."

Sarah breathes very carefully and asks, "You don't think he can do both at once?"

It was safer talking like this when Jack wasn't looking directly at her - and maybe Jack thinks so too, because he looks away as he says, "I think every man's heart plays dumb from time to time. Likes to pretend things, you know? To protect itself."

"Well, there's protecting yourself," Sarah says, in her best Jack Dalton tone. She's not sure the touch of levity fits the circumstances... But really - what would? "And then there's being afraid of a good thing just because it's new."

Or sabotaging it in the name of a good thing that's already had its chance, Sarah reminds herself - as she has one too many times since this op started.

'Never again,' she promises herself. She silently promises Chet, as well. She promises Jack, and she promises Mac. 

She and Jack are too old for dumb hearts. Chet deserves more. And so does Mac.

Jack frowns. "Are we- Are we still talking about-" 

But then, Mac _does_ seem to know a lot of things. Sarah trusts that he and Jack can figure it out.

The war room door is opening up, so Sarah just smiles and tells Jack that she still hopes that maybe she'll see him at the wedding.

She does. For better or for worse.

But it helps to see that he's there with Mac at his side.


End file.
